How Did Ancient People Determine The Difference Between Plants And Animals

Abstract

Ecology archaeology has historically been key to Mesolithic studies in Britain and Ireland. Whilst processual archaeology was concerned with the economic significance of the surroundings, mail service-processual archæology afterwards rejected economically driven narratives, resulting in a plough abroad from plant and fauna remains. Mail-processual narratives focused instead on enigmatic 'ritual' items that economic accounts struggled to suitably explain. Processual accounts of landscapes, grounded in economic determinism, were likewise rejected in favour of explorations of their sociocultural aspects. Still, in moving away from plant and creature remains, such accounts lacked the ability to rigorously explore the specificities of particular landscapes and humans actions within them. This paper will bridge this gap past considering how palaeoecological and zooarchaeological analyses can be used to explore human interactions with plants and animals, which were key in developing understandings and relationships that ultimately structured landscapes, influenced past human actions and shaped archaeological assemblages.

Introduction: Early Approaches to Plants and Animals

Constitute and animal remains are conspicuously absent-minded from early twentieth century accounts of the British and Irish Mesolithic. Although faunal remains had been discovered in 1920 (Peake and Crawford 1922), the first British synthesis was almost entirely focused on lithics (Clark 1932), whilst interest in organic remains was directed toward artefacts, namely a handful of barbed points recovered from Skipsea and Hornsea, the Rivers Thames and Royston, and the Leman and Ower sandbanks (Clark 1932). Following European models, institute materials began to be used to establish the sequence of vegetational changes in Britain and Ireland from the later stages of the final Water ice Age, which provided a means to date sites and finds, including the Leaman and Ower barbed antler point, and relate them to the European tape (Godwin and Godwin 1933; Jessen 1949).

By the 1940s, at that place was a growing desire to discover sites with organic preservation, in function to date textile, but as well to investigate the lifeways of 'Maglemosian Man' (Clark 1954). This was encapsulated in Prehistoric Europe: The economic basis, which aimed to reconstruct economical life from material traces of human lives, using animal basic to demonstrate species' economic importance, and creature behaviour to discuss methods of hunting, seasonality and cycles of occupation (Clark 1952). The growing interest in organic remains led to the excavation of Star Carr, which yielded the first associated lithic, faunal and osseous artefact assemblages (Clark 1954). Analysis of the faunal remains identified red deer as the virtually of import hunted species, converted the assemblage into calorific totals in order to approximate an aggregated occupation length, and used shed and unshed antler to identify the flavour of occupation, (Clark 1954). In contrast, whilst the potential of plants as a source of nutrient was discussed, they were considered to be of secondary importance, and the botanical material was used primarily to determine the character of the local environment and to relate Star Carr chronologically to other Mesolithic sites in Northern Europe (Clark 1954). In early accounts of the Mesolithic, animal remains were established as nutritional and material resources, used to explore how humans lived; nevertheless, institute remains played a more passive role, simply providing the ecology context inside which these deportment occurred.

Economic Archaeology

From the 1950s, archaeological interest in faunal and botanical materials continued to increase, leading to the evolution of both zooarchaeology and palaeoecology, and the emergence of a more scientific approach to archaeological assay. This manifested itself in a focus on the measurable and testable aspects of by homo life, and in particular the assertion that economical institutions played leading roles in civilisation (Trigger 1971). Within early economic accounts of the Mesolithic, it was the abundance and distribution of nutrient resources that was deemed to be of disquisitional importance, structuring homo movements within the mural (e.g. Mellars 1975).

Fauna

Within accounts of the British Mesolithic, the irresolute populations of animals were cited as the most firsthand business organisation of Mesolithic humans (Mellars 1974, 1975). From the Star Carr assemblage, Clark again noted that reddish deer were the prime number food source, but also suggested Mesolithic groups would take followed migrating herds betwixt lowland areas in winter and upland areas in summer (Clark 1972). More than detailed studies, once more focusing on scarlet deer, described herds seasonally shifting from dispersed upland summer populations to more full-bodied lowland winter groups (Mellars 1975). Echoing Clark, this seasonal variance was cited as the key in shaping man settlement patterns, social system and mobility strategies, leading to upland–lowland seasonal transhumance, larger winter settlement sites and smaller summer social groupings (Mellars 1976a, b). In turn, this model was employed to translate the functional patterning in lithic assemblages, identifying small, microlith-dominated assemblages in upland areas equally summertime hunting camps, whilst assemblages with a counterbalanced of microliths and scrapers in lowland areas were interpreted as wintertime sites (Mellars 1976a, b).

The Irish fabric offered a singled-out dissimilarity. Based on the distribution of sites within valleys, in detail the Bann Valley, early accounts suggested the 'oftentimes quoted, only never substantiated' theory that Mesolithic life in Ireland relied on fishing (Woodman 1973). However, by the 1970s, organic remains were recovered from a number of sites, permitting the first directly examination of Irish Mesolithic economies. Remains of salmonid and eel from Newferry provided evidence that line-fishing was of prime importance (Woodman 1977), which was supported by the recovery of large quantities of the aforementioned species from excavations at Mount Sandel and Lough Boora (Woodman 1978). The mammalian assemblages were dominated by wild boar, a pattern reflecting the restricted Irish fauna, which lacked aurochs, elk, red deer and roe deer (cf. Woodman et al. 1997). The absence of remains of these animals, or any substantial upland occupation, in these assemblages suggested a radically different economy to the British red deer transhumance model. In contrast, Irish Mesolithic groups were described every bit remaining in river valleys, occupying sites in summer to target migrating salmon and eel, hunting wild boar in winter, and moving to exploit coastal resources in spring (Woodman 1978). In turn, these fish-oriented economic models were used to interpret lithic assemblages, presenting Bann flakes as function of a maintenance kit for fish weirs and traps (Woodman 1977).

Later processual accounts (from the 1980s onwards) continued to base of operations Mesolithic mobility on the exploitation of key resources; re-analysis of Star Carr compared the faunal fabric with modern hunter-gatherer assemblages, to translate the site as a hunting camp (Legge and Rowley-Conwy 1988), continuing the tradition of interpreting site use in terms of animal resource exploitation. In Republic of ireland, narratives of seasonal mobility and settlement patterns continued to revolve around the exploitation of fish, and, to a lesser, extent wild boar. Full analyses of the Mount Sandel and Lough Boora fabric confirmed loftier frequencies of salmonids and eel, which were characterised as highly predictable summertime resource (van Wijngaarden-Bakker 1990; Woodman 1985) and a storable food that buffered winter shortages (Woodman 1985), implicitly suggesting that wild boar hunting was somewhat of a winter stop-gap. As British narratives were grounded in models of cherry-red deer movements, in Ireland, it was fish and line-fishing that played the key function. Indeed, fish were so central to accounts of the Irish gaelic Mesolithic that sites in close proximity to rivers, but containing no fish remains, were interpreted equally fishing sites (cf. Little 2009). Furthermore, the recovery of a larger assemblage of marine fish and mollusc remains from Ferriter's Cove led to the consideration of marine resources, and the suggestion that Afterward Mesolithic communities on the Dingle peninsular may have remained in coastal areas for substantial parts of the year (Woodman 1992). This focus on marine resources, tied into wider debates regarding 'circuitous' hunter gatherers and the intensification of marine resource exploitation (Price 1985), was echoed in Uk by the Oronsay Middens (Mellars 1987). Thus, whilst the British and Irish assemblages independent distinctively dissimilar materials, giving ascension to very different accounts of Mesolithic life, these narratives both presented hunter-gatherers as agreement landscapes based on resource availability, and occupying sites within seasonal rounds to efficiently extract these resource.

Flora

Early economical accounts continued to use plants to characterise the Mesolithic surround, identifying large-scale vegetational changes during the early on Holocene (Mellars 1974), and establishing Ireland'south express flora (cf. Edwards 1985). Notwithstanding, from the 1960s, pollen diagrams from British Mesolithic sites indicated phases of forest recession and clearance associated with high frequencies of micro-charcoal, suggesting anthropogenic clearance intervention using burn down (Smith 1970; Simmons 1979). This was interpreted inside ungulate hunting models, where clearance stimulated vegetation re-growth, increasing the expanse's 'carrying capacity' and attracting herbivores, resulting in increases in deer numbers, wellness, and weight (Mellars 1975). These clearances were as well identified as allowing Mesolithic groups to control animal resources, reducing hunting time and energy expenditure, and assuasive the germination of larger groups and more permanent settlements (Mellars 1976a, b). This became a key chemical element in accounts of British Mesolithic economies, and although the potential increase of plant food resource was best-selling (Mellars 1976a, b), clearance was presented primarily every bit a strategy to obtain animals. Fire was the principal tool in deer cycle maintenance (Simmons 1979), and vegetation clearance was presented as a form of proto-pastoralist herd management (Mellars 1976a, b). Furthermore, high frequencies of ivy pollen at British Mesolithic sites were interpreted equally gathered fodder for red deer (Simmons and Dimbleby 1974), calculation farther weight to narratives of man control over creature resources. Whilst episodes of woodland manipulation were identified in Ireland (Smith 1981; Preece et al. 1986), there were fewer than in U.k., possibly reflecting less engagement in clearance practices in Ireland, because of the absence of large ungulate species (Woodman 2000) and the economic focus on fish.

These early on economic accounts nowadays an important contrast between archaeology's approaches to plant remains and animal remains. In United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland and Ireland, animals were presented every bit key resources whose differential distribution was the foundation of human understanding of the mural; humans were believed to seasonally 'map on to' this distribution, shaping mobility strategies, site use and lithic assemblages. In contrast, plant remains were used in these accounts to characterise the environs within which humans and animals existed, or as a medium for considering human–fauna interactions. Although plant food resources were acknowledged, their dietary importance was non fully explored. This tin exist considered the result of the preservation bias between botanical and osseous remains, though this 'meat fixation' can also be understood every bit an imposition of modern dietary values on to the by (Clarke 1978).

This constitute–animal imbalance began to be addressed every bit the dietary role of plant foods, and the use of clearance to specifically manage and increase plant resources, were considered in more than detail (Zvelebil 1994). These later studies highlighted the wealth of plant foods available to Mesolithic people, even suggesting that wild boar and fish remains from Irish sites may have supplemented a plant-dominated diet (MacLean 1993). Furthermore, the recovery of plant remains from archaeological features identified intensive exploitation of hazelnuts and other plant species on the Scottish isle of Colonsay (Mithen et al. 2001). Such studies did much to emphasize the significant role plant resource may take played in the Mesolithic: from this point in research history, the Mesolithic environment was understood as made up of animal and plant resource extracted by occupying specific sites, which formed a network beyond the mural, orientated around optimised exploitation.

Postal service-processual Mesolithic Studies

From the 1980s, new archaeological themes emerged. Unhappy with processual narratives of human action driven by measurable economic factors, mail-processual studies moved to consider the social, and unmeasurable, aspects of human lives. Withal, subsequently decades of inquiry focused on environmental and economical bug, the Mesolithic research customs was largely populated past scientific ecology archaeologists, far less interested in 'unmeasurable' social accounts. This led to the later emergence of a post-processual Mesolithic and, with new practitioners, a move abroad from subsistence models and ecology reconstruction.

For the starting time fourth dimension, humans' relationships with animals were examined across the well-established supposition that humans considered animals in exclusively economical terms. Instead, beast remains were considered within the context of symbolic and/or religious Mesolithic world views, relating to themes such as human being and animal fertility (Bevan 2003). Furthermore, studies began to break down the long-standing divisions between humans and animals, to explore relationships between humans and animals in which nonhumans were considered as active social agents, as opposed to objects. Whilst earlier, processual studies had discussed fauna behaviour (eastward.g. Legge and Rowley-Conwy 1988), these had tended to focus on biological factors (such as breeding cycles or seasonal migration) and their implications for Mesolithic economies. In dissimilarity, an explicit recognition of fauna agency acknowledged the potential for nonhumans to affect humans through their actions and interactions. This in turn was seen to guide processes of hunting, gathering, use, consumption and deposition in the past, practices which ultimately shaped the archaeological record. For case, in Britain, both Conneller (2003) and Chatterton (2003), argued that the big assemblage of bone and antler artefacts and faunal cloth at Star Carr was generated through intentional forms of deposition relating to the culturally appropriate ways of disposing of the remains of animals. Furthermore, the enigmatic red deer 'frontlets' from Star Carr were regarded as objects retaining the agency of the living animals from which they originated; and, when worn, they combined elements of human and ruby deer, extending man bodies and blurring the boundaries betwixt human and animal (Conneller 2004). In Ireland, Kelly suggested that humans may have developed an understanding of wild boar as dangerous through hunting encounters, and subsequently dealt with this reality past including these animals in their wider cultural beliefs (2005).

Similarly, consideration of plants and woodlands extended beyond their economic role, past exploring how humans may take come to terms with the world effectually them. Influenced past a growing body of hunter-gatherer ethnographies, Mesolithic woodlands in Ireland, and woodlands more mostly, began to be considered as things with which Mesolithic humans may accept engaged in personal relationships, equally ancestors or benevolent parents, wrapped upward in circuitous symbolic understandings of the world (see Warren 2003). Similarly, oft-cited clearance events were considered as having social, as opposed to economic, motivations, to maintain articulate areas and paths, as office of longer-term relationships between humans and woodlands (Davies et al. 2005).

Mail service-processual studies produced new accounts of Mesolithic Britain and Republic of ireland that were non reliant on problematic economic models of optimised exploitation. Still, by moving the focus away from subsistence and the surroundings, they also moved away from plant and brute remains. Having served every bit crucial lynchpins in studies of subsistence, seasonality and mobility, faunal and palaeoecological remains appear to have been burdened with a seemingly unshakable and irreversible economical stigma. New accounts of Mesolithic landscapes lacked paleoecological evidence (east.g. McFadyen 2006), and it was suggested that to further the report of human–animal relations at that place was a need to 'move beyond bones' (Bevan 2003). In the case of fauna remains, whilst 'typical' zooarchaeological material was absent, post-processual studies focused on textile that was understood as having other-than-economical significance, such every bit the spinous points and frontlets from Star Carr, and whole brute depositions, which previously sat awkwardly in traditional economic interpretations (Conneller 2004; Chatterton 2006). At the same time, processual studies of plant and animal remains continued to focus on subsistence, seasonality and clearance events on either side of the Irish Body of water (eastward.thousand. Innes and Blackford 2003; Carter 2001). Therefore, zooarchaeological and palaeoecological data continued to be used inside economical frameworks, whilst enigmatic or artefactual items made of animal remains were being explored inside social accounts of the British and Irish Mesolithic. At the publication of Mesolithic United kingdom and Ireland: New Approaches (Conneller and Warren 2006), this sectionalization in the use of faunal and palaeoecological remains, betwixt 'economic' and 'social' approaches, presented a major challenge in thinking about humans, plants, animals and landscapes; could we ever get the full film by only considering a portion of the evidence?

Mesolithic U.k. and Republic of ireland: 10 Years on

Over the final x years, inquiry into plants, animals and landscapes has undergone meaning developments. The analysis of faunal and palaeoecological bear witness continues to apply inherently processual methodologies, generated over decades of research and development. However, more than recent theoretical frameworks have demonstrated a shift from abstract to more data-focused accounts. A renewed interest in the textile world, the so called 'material turn', has challenged anthropocentric frameworks, which causeless humans to exist split from and superior to all the other elements of the world, and replaced them with a conceptualisation inside which all entities, be they humans, plants, things or animals are on an equal footing (Thomas 2015). In such frameworks, all elements of the world are considered to have the chapters to deed and act back, affecting other things, including humans. This places the materials of Mesolithic lives, and examination of human being interactions and relationships with them, at the centre of producing new understandings of the menstruum.

New approaches within zooarchaeology have begun thinking about animals not equally nutritional or material resource, just every bit active living beings, with the ability to affect man understanding through meaningful interactions and encounters. Equally faunal assemblages are made up of the very animals with which humans interacted, standard zooarchaeological data regarding species, age and sex tin be used, in conjunction with beast behaviour studies, to characterise the encounters betwixt humans and particular individuals in specific places, environments and at different times of the year. The human understandings of animals developed through these encounters may have been of import in shaping how species or individuals were later killed, processed, and finally deposited, and are, therefore, fundamental considerations in the interpretation of archaeological assemblages (Overton and Hamilakis 2013). Such studies have already begun to produce more detailed accounts of the relationship between humans and animals in the British Mesolithic (Overton 2014), and most recently, identified the transportation and curation of isolated wild cat, badger, play tricks, wolf and otter bones as pregnant objects, as opposed to only waste from fur extraction (Overton 2016). The potential consumption of bear and birds of prey at Moynagh Lough and Mountain Sandel in Ireland has been explored as a potential ways for humans to take on behavioural or symbolic attributes of these species (Warren 2015). Similarly, fauna remains used for the production of artefacts have been characterised equally 'dragging' effects of past encounters with them, influencing the ways materials and artefacts were used, understood and treated (Conneller 2011; Elliott 2012). This extends to the way such items were disposed of, as seen with the show for the deliberate decommissioning of equipment made from osseous materials at Star Carr (Taylor et al. 2017).

In contrast, studies of plant remains accept continued to focus on the bear witness for human structuring of woodland and the gathering of food, raw material and fuel (in Ireland: Warren et al. 2014; in Scotland: Bishop et al. 2014, 2015), continuing to redress the plant–creature imbalance of before accounts. Withal, consideration is also given to the social and cultural circumstances that may have encouraged the gathering of plants (Warren et al. 2014), and the role such practices, and the resultant remains, have in making socially significant places and landscapes (Cobb 2016). This marks an surface area of corking potential for future study; contempo discussions of the dynamic relationships betwixt humans and plants have highlighted the potential bureau of plants, and their ability to touch humans through entangled relationships and mutual transformations. Van der Veen (2014), for instance, has discussed how human and constitute behaviour is intricately linked in relationships of mutual benefit through the processes of domestication. Though Mesolithic groups did non practise agronomics, Taylor (2018) has shown that wild plants possessed a similar agency in the way they affected patterns of man behaviour within Mesolithic landscapes. Every bit, the proposition that plants may have been used for their medicinal or narcotic properties (for case, the Galium aparine remains recovered from Belderrig in Ireland: Warren 2015), provides an obvious avenue for research into the social significance of plant species. In the rejection of anthropocentric schemes, and in light of contempo literature that argues for the recognition of establish agency (e.g. Brown and Emery 2008; van der Veen 2014) we must not open the door to animate being agency, just to close it once more on plants.

Example Study: Humans in the Surroundings

To illustrate how a social business relationship of a Mesolithic environment can exist constructed, we conclude with a case study focusing on an episode of aurochs hunting in the early Mesolithic landscape of the palaeo-lake Flixton (N. Yorks, UK) (Fig. 1). Drawing upon contempo palaeoenvironmental studies (Mellars and Dark 1998; Taylor 2012) and excavations (Grayness Jones and Taylor 2015), nosotros will discuss how the lives of the aurochs and its hunters were entwined through their complex relationships with other aspects of the surroundings; and how, through mutual encounters, the creature came to be seen as an agent, acting with purpose and intention within the mural.

Aurochs Hunting Around the Palaeo-Lake Flixton

In 1999, exam-pitting surveys carried out by the Vale of Pickering Research Trust recovered a faunal aggregation from a small, peat-filled hollow at Flixton School House Subcontract, on the southern shore of the palaeo-lake Flixton (Gray Jones and Taylor 2015) (Fig. 2). Subsequent excavations recorded a detached area of activity side by side to the hollow, consisting of pits, arrangements of post-holes, and deliberately constructed hollows. The main phase of activity has been dated to the outset one-half of the ninth millennium cal BC, though at that place is evidence for occupation both earlier and later in the Mesolithic (Gray Jones and Taylor 2015). Further earthworks in the hollow failed to recover any more archaeological material, and the faunal aggregation appears to reverberate a discrete episode of deposition.

The faunal aggregation formed a discrete scatter, less than 0.iii m across, with many elements in close association. Macro-botanical analysis suggests that it was deposited into a shallow pool of water amongst beds of Phragmites reeds and sedges (Taylor 2012). Attempts to date the basic failed. Nonetheless, a pollen profile recorded from the aforementioned trench (Cummins and Simmons 2013) places the deposition of the aggregation well before the expansion of hazel, dated locally to 8295–7789 cal BC (8940 ± 90 BP) (Mellars and Dark 1998).

Analysis of the assemblage, carried out past Overton, has identified 13 ribs (half-dozen left sided and 7 right sided), 3 thoracic vertebrae and a fragment of the right pelvis (Fig. 3). Both left and right commencement ribs were present, but due to high levels of fragmentation and poor surface preservation it was not possible to identify the remaining ribs to specific positions in the rib cage. Withal, the morphology of the rib head and costal facets suggests that, whilst the majority originated from the anterior half of the rib cage, at least two ribs were from the posterior one-half. I rib exhibited transverse cutting marks on the internal surface of the rib trunk, confirming human being association with the remains. It was not possible to identify the thoracic vertebrae to specific positions within the vertebral column. The fragment of pelvis represents a portion of the supra-acetabular margin on the dorsal side of the innominate, exhibiting an ancient break, including the loss of a small splinter along the edge of the chemical element, which may be associated with directly percussion.

The aggregation was originally thought to correspond an articulated portion of the creature; however, the skeletal frequencies do non back up this. Firstly, the pelvis and the thoracic vertebrae do not clear straight; they are connected via the sacrum and lumbar vertebrae, both of which are absent. Secondly, a fully articulated portion containing xiii ribs would also contain 7 vertebrae, each supporting a pair of ribs. The under-representation of vertebrae cannot exist explained equally a result of differential preservation, as this would require identical vertebrae to either be well preserved, or entirely destroyed within the same context, suggesting the patterning is the consequence of human action.

The aurochs, and the humans who hunted and killed it, inhabited a various environment. Much of the firsthand landscape was covered by birch woodland with an understory of ground flora (Mellars and Night 1998; Cummins 2003), interspersed with hazel and shrub species (Taylor 2012). Within the woodland were small ponds, fringed with reeds and willow (Taylor 2012), and a shifting pattern of clearings created through ongoing processes such as windfall and animal action (Cummins 2003). At the lake shore, birch grew amidst aspen and willow, creating dense thickets in some places, whilst a suite of shrubs and fen plants thrived in areas with reduced tree cover (Taylor 2011, 2012). Within the lake, all-encompassing beds of swamp vegetation were growing in the areas of shallower water, filling many of the small embayments around the edges of the basin, whilst aquatic plants grew in the deeper h2o beyond (Taylor 2011, 2012). A range of brute species too inhabited this landscape, including big mammals such as elk, red and roe deer, and wild boar; predators such as wolf and flim-flam; and smaller mammals such every bit beaver, pine marten, and squirrel (Clark 1954).

These elements of the environment interacted with one another in subtly different ways. The aurochs, which is thought to take grazed on grasses (including reeds) but also browsed in the winter (van Vuure 2002), probably moved between the woodland and the extensive beds of reeds that formed in parts of the lake. Its habitats crossed over with those of elk, which would have come to the lake to feed on aquatic vegetation and scan on the thickets of willow and aspen forth the shore, and roe deer, who would accept fed on browse in the terrestrial woodland (Legge and Rowley-Conwy 1988). Nonetheless, its behaviour was also informed past interactions with predatory species such equally wolves, and similar other browsers and grazers, it would have avoided areas of reduced mobility and visibility, focusing instead on places with clear lines of sight and unimpeded escape routes (Ripple and Beschta 2004).

The interactions between plants and animals would take structured the grapheme and composition of the local vegetation. Around the edges of the lake, selective foraging by beaver would have resulted in patches of younger shrub species, and created openings within the denser encompass of willow and aspen (Rossell et al. 2005). The growth of willow and aspen would besides take been more limited in areas where browsers such every bit elk were most active, and more pronounced in areas that they avoided (Ripple and Beschta 2004), whilst grazing of the reed beds past aurochs is likely to accept locally inhibited the expansion of woody vegetation into the wetlands. As fauna populations fluctuated and vegetation changed, these interactions would take created a shifting mosaic of found and fauna communities inside and around the lake.

The humans who inhabited this landscape had an equally complex relationship with this environs. Excavations at sites effectually the lake accept shown that people were interacting with a variety of different plants and animals through a range of tasks (Taylor 2012). The nature and scale of these tasks would have varied across the landscape in response to the spatial variation of item institute and animal communities, and the way they inverse throughout the twelvemonth. Every bit with the aurochs, these patterns of activity would have crossed over with those of the animals, as people engaged with the same species of plants in comparable environmental contexts. This included visiting the lake edge to collect wetland plants, or cutting downwards aspen from thickets growing at the shore. And as with animals, these activities likewise structured the environs, creating clearings in the reed beds and woodland.

In tin be argued that, as they undertook these activities, people would have encountered the unlike found and animal communities and observed the manner they interacted with i another. Through this, they would have developed a keen, empirical knowledge of their environment; the distribution of different fauna and plant species, the relationships between them, and the way they behaved in different circumstances. However, this understanding may well have gone further. Many of the animals would have formed pocket-size social groups that occupied limited territories inside this landscape. People's understanding would have been situated in encounters with particular groups of animals or specific individuals, some of which may take been recognised from previous meetings. What is more, in observing these animals, people would take seen behaviour that was recognisable to them, and which in some cases involved engaging with and modifying the same institute communities in similar landscape settings. In this manner, the partition between humans and animals would have cleaved down, with animals seen equally agents, acting with purpose and intent in the landscape (cf. Overton and Hamilakis 2013; Overton 2014, 2016).

To the hunters, the Flixton aurochs was a familiar animal, whose behaviour they understood; it may even have been an individual they recognised. They would take known where to find the animal, and the signs that it was nigh. The Kutchin of the Alaskan interior identify the presence of moose from the harm it causes to willow when feeding, and then apply tracks to tell how recently the animal was at the site (Nelson 1986). If Mesolithic hunters adopted a like strategy they may accept looked for grazed reeds in the lake margins and then followed fresh tracks, either along the shore or into the woodland. From there, the hunters could employ a number of different strategies, all based upon an understanding of the animal's behaviour. One would exist to drive the aurochs from cover towards waiting hunters, a strategy sometimes employed by the Kutchin when hunting moose (Nelson 1986), and perchance driving the creature into the lake border, where the boggy ground would have limited is mobility (Andersen et al. 1981). Alternatively, if the fauna was moving forth a trail they could take intercepted it, using knowledge of the animal's behaviour and the local environment to select suitable locations for an ambush (Nelson 1986).

Whatever strategy was employed, the hunt ended with a final, concrete encounter with the aurochs. It is probable that the hunters used projectiles, such as arrows, to attack the animate being, hitting information technology from multiple directions in an attempt to impale or incapacitate it. Impact injuries on the basic of aurochs and other large mammals from Mesolithic sites in Northern Europe indicate the employ of projectile weapons fired from the rear, sides and forepart (Noe-Nygaard 1974; Fischer 1989; Leduc 2014). It is possible that the Flixton aurochs was killed past a fatal shot during this initial run across. Nonetheless, evidence from the Danish Mesolithic bear witness that some animals were dispatched past blows from big spears aiming for the eye (Noe-Nygaard 1974). In such cases, the animate being may have been pursued till exhausted and and so finished off, or may take been driven, injured, into an area where its mobility was reduced, assuasive the hunters to get close enough to strike.

Once killed, at least office of the animal was brought to the site at Flixton School House Farm, where elements of its butchered carcass were deposited in shallow standing h2o. Based on its context, the material is unlikely to reverberate an episode of insitu butchering, whilst the discrete nature of the assemblage argues against ad hoc disposal from an adjacent activity surface area. Instead, it represents materials gathered together from a larger assemblage and then deposited. This would explain the imbalance in rib and vertebra frequencies, and the presence of non-articulating thoracic vertebrae and pelvis in such shut association. This is non to rule out the possibility that the three vertebrae were deposited articulated, potentially with ribs attached; however, if this was the case, farther isolated ribs and the pelvic fragment were also deposited aslope them. Furthermore, given that the elements were institute in such shut association, the bones may originally have been wrapped up or deposited in a bag.

Similar forms of deposition have been documented in ethnographic accounts of traditional hunter-gatherer societies and ofttimes form part of a wider set up of beliefs in which animals and other aspects of the environment are considered to be sentient in a similar way to humans (due east.g. Nelson 1983; Hashemite kingdom of jordan 2003). Whether or not such ideas lay backside the material from Flixton, the assemblage represents far more than than just the disposal of waste. Rather, this was a deliberate human activity of curating and so depositing the remains of an fauna, which was known, understood and perceived as an individual.

Conclusions

The continuation of non-anthropocentric explorations of zooarchaeological and palaeoecological information from the British and Irish Mesolithic has the potential to provide increasingly detailed accounts of meaningful interactions between humans, plants and animals, which may in turn profoundly raise our interpretations of homo practices and deportment. It is an heady prospect to consider how more data from other forms of analysis, such as isotopic analysis, zooarchaeology by mass spectrometry (ZooMS), tool microwear and rest assay, and even Deoxyribonucleic acid analysis might develop these accounts further. If we consider animals non equally resources but as agents, the relationships and understandings humans developed through encounters and interactions accept significant implications for future assay of animal remains. Nosotros know from ethnographic accounts that beast remains are deposited in very structured, prescribed ways amongst groups who perceive those animals to be agents. To ignore the possibility that Mesolithic faunal assemblages may have been generated through comparable sets of rules is archaeologically naive. Every bit highlighted in the case report, deposited material should not exist conceived of as simply rubbish; these remains retain aspects of specific human–brute relationships: they guided and shaped the ways they were butchered, consumed, distributed and deposited. One interesting direction for future inquiry is to examine how much excavated cloth exhibits patterning in densities and distributions that are the upshot of intentional acts of degradation, and how these can be interpreted in the wider framework of human being–animate being relationships. Furthermore, if the majority of, or all, faunal remains were subject to specific treatments every bit a consequence of human being–animal relationships, they can all exist used to examine these relationships, collapsing any previous divisions between 'economical' and 'social' assemblages. This requires u.s.a. to move beyond characterising the treatment of beast remains in specific ways equally rare or other-than-normal by using the term 'ritual'. Instead, we should acknowledge that meaningful interactions with animals, and the negotiation of meaning relationships with them through practices of hunting, consumption and deposition, were probably part of everyday life. On a larger scale, greater focus on species demographics and hunting strategies is needed to focus on the spatial and temporal variations in the species hunted, to provide new accounts of hunting that move beyond outdated ruby-deer transhumance models, and also to consider how processes of hunting particular species at specific sites structured local landscapes. In doing so, it is too important to explore how particular human–animal relationships may accept affected hunting strategies, and the extent to which regional patterning could exist understood as socially mediated.

Admittedly, both the case study, and the final remarks to this point, have focused more on the consideration of humans and animals than of plants, echoing the bias outlined in previous sections. However, if nosotros have the agency of plants (van der Veen 2014), or indeed their potential animacy, we tin begin to examine how human interactions and encounters with plants developed particular understandings of specific species, and how this may have affected the ways humans treated them, used them or avoided them. Examining plants as agents or as animate beings may be both methodologically and conceptually challenging, only it is likewise relevant. The ethnographic record contains numerous examples of plants that are aware of the deportment of humans, and possess the capacity to be offended or angered; every bit the ethnographer Richard Nelson wrote, 'My Koyukon teachers told me, almost reluctantly, about ane plant that is truly evil' (Nelson 1983). And in many cases interactions with plants and the disposal of plant materials are subject to similar rules to those governing the treatment of animals, with comparable consequences for those who fail to adhere to them (e.g. Boaz 1921; Nelson 1983; Brownish and Emery 2008). Returning to the European Mesolithic, the agency of plants has recently been demonstrated by Taylor (2018), who has shown how the habitat preferences and growth patterns of item plant species act to structure the spatial and temporal patterning of human being action. Whilst belief in plant animacy may be harder to see archaeologically, that does not mean that the evidence is non there. Contempo reviews of the evidence for plant apply testify a considerable degree of consistency in the choice of species that were utilised (e.g. Bishop et al. 2014, 2015). Should these only be explained in terms of availability or functionality, or might they also exist the result of specific ways humans understood sure species? To usa, the thought of an breathing, sentient plant sounds absurd, just to the inhabitants of the British Isles during the Mesolithic such concepts may take underpinned the routine habitual practices of daily life.

References

Andresen, J., Byrd, B., Elson, M., McGuire, R., Mendoza, R., Staski, East., et al. (1981). The deer hunters: Star Carr reconsidered. World Archaeology, 13(i), 31–46.

Article Google Scholar
Bevan, L. (2003). Stag nights and horny men: Antler symbolism and interaction with the fauna world during the Mesolithic. In L. V. Bevan & J. Moore (Eds.), Peopling the Mesolithic in a northern environment (pp. 35–44). Oxford: Archaeopress.

Google Scholar
Bishop, R. R., Church, M. J., & Rowley-Conwy, P. A. (2014). Seeds, fruits and basics in the Scottish Mesolithic. Proceedings of the Gild of Antiquaries of Scotland, 143, 9–72.

Google Scholar
Bishop, R. R., Church, Yard. J., & Rowley-Conwy, P. A. (2015). Firewood, nutrient and human niche structure: The potential role of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers in actively structuring Scotland's woodlands. 4th Scientific discipline Reviews, 108, 51–75.

Article Google Scholar
Boaz, F. (1921). Ethnology of the Kwakiutl, based on data collected past George Hunt, by Franz Boas. Washington: Government Printing Office.

Google Scholar
Brown, 50. A., & Emery, One thousand. F. J. (2008). Negotiations with the breathing forest: Hunting shrines in the Guatemalan highlands. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 15, 300–337.

Article Google Scholar
Carter, R. S. (2001). New testify for seasonal man presence at the Early Mesolithic site of Thatcham, Berkshire, England. Periodical of Archaeological Science, 28, 1055–1060.

Article Google Scholar
Chatterton, R. (2003). Star Carr reanalysed. In J. Moore & 50. Bevan (Eds.), Peopling the Mesolithic in a northern environment (pp. 69–80). Oxford: Archaeopress.

Google Scholar
Chatterton, R. (2006). Ritual. In C. Conneller & G. Warren (Eds.), Mesolithic Britain and Ireland: New approaches (pp. 101–120). Stroud: Tempus.

Google Scholar
Clark, J. Chiliad. D. (1932). The Mesolithic age in Great britain. Cambridge: Cambridge Academy Press.

Google Scholar
Clark, J. G. D. (1952). Prehistoric Europe: The economic basis. London: Methuen. Ltd.

Google Scholar
Clark, J. Thousand. D. (1954). Excavations at Star Carr. Cambridge: Cambridge Academy Press.

Google Scholar
Clark, J. One thousand. D. (1972). Star Carr: A instance in bioarchaeology. New York: Addison-Wesley.

Google Scholar
Clarke, D. (1978). Mesolithic Europe: The economic footing. London: Duckworth.

Google Scholar
Cobb, H. (2016). Why the Mesolithic needs assemblages. In Eastward. K. Bonney (Ed.), Incomplete archaeologies (pp. 1–8). Oxford: Oxbow Books.

Google Scholar
Conneller, C. (2003). Star Carr recontextualised. In J. Moore & L. Bevan (Eds.), Peopling the Mesolithic in a northern environment (pp. 81–86). Oxford: Archaeopress.

Google Scholar
Conneller, C. (2004). Becoming deer. Corporeal transformations at Star Carr. Archaeological Dialogues, 11, 37–56.

Article Google Scholar
Conneller, C. (2011). An archaeology of materials. New York: Routledge.

Google Scholar
Conneller, C., & Overton, N. J. (2018). The British Mesolithic context. In North. Milner, C. Conneller, & B. Taylor (Eds.), Star Carr. York: White Rose Academy Printing.

Google Scholar
Conneller, C., & Warren, Chiliad. (Eds.). (2006). Mesolithic Uk and Ireland: New approaches. Stroud: Tempus.

Google Scholar
Cummins, G. (2003). Impacts of hunter-gatherers on the vegetation history of the eastern Vale of Pickering, Yorkshire. PhD Thesis, Durham University.
Cummins, 1000., & Simmons, I. (2013). Palaeoecological context of a Bos skeleton from Peats at Flixton Schoolhouse House Farm, Vale of Pickering. CBA Yorkshire, 2, 21–28.

Google Scholar
Davies, P., Robb, J. G., & Ladbrook, D. (2005). Woodland clearance in the Mesolithic: The social aspects. Artifact, 79(304), 280–288.

Article Google Scholar
Edwards, M. J. (1985). The anthropogenic factor in vegetational history. In One thousand. J. Edwards & W. P. Warren (Eds.), The quaternary history of Ireland (pp. 187–220). London: Academic Press.

Google Scholar
Elliott, B. J. (2012). Antlerworking practices in Mesolithic Great britain. PhD Thesis, University of York.
Fischer, A. (1989). Hunting with flint-tipped arrows. In C. Bonsall (Ed.), The Mesolithic in Europe (pp. 29–39). Edinburgh: John Donald.

Google Scholar
Godwin, H., & Godwin, K. E. (1933). British Maglemose harpoon sites. Artifact, vii(25), 39–48.

Article Google Scholar
Gray Jones, A., & Taylor, B. (2015). Excavations at Flixton School House Farm, 2008–9. Unpublished Archive Report.
Innes, J. B., & Blackford, J. J. (2003). The ecology of Late Mesolithic woodland disturbances. Journal of Archaeological Science, xxx, 185–194.

Article Google Scholar
Jessen, K. (1949). Studies in tardily 4th deposits and flora-history of Ireland. Proceedings of the Royal Irish University, 52B, 85–209.

Google Scholar
Hashemite kingdom of jordan, P. (2003). Textile culture and sacred mural. Walnut Creek: Altamira Press.

Google Scholar
Kelly, D. (2005). Animal–human being relations in the Mesolithic of Republic of ireland. Trowel, 10, 33–fifty.

Google Scholar
Leduc, C. (2014). New Mesolithic hunting testify from bone injuries at Danish Maglemosian sites: Lunby Mose and Mullerup (Sjælland). International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, 24(4), 476–491.

Article Google Scholar
Legge, T., & Rowley-Conwy, P. (1988). Star Carr revisited: A re-analysis of the large mammals. London: The Archaeological Laboratory, Birkbeck Higher.

Google Scholar
Little, A. (2009). Fishy settlement patterns and their social significance. In Due south. McCartan, R. Schulting, Yard. Warren, & P. Woodman (Eds.), Mesolithic horizons (pp. 698–705). Oxford: Oxbow Books.

Google Scholar
MacLean, R. (1993). Eat your greens: An examination of the potential nutrition available in Ireland during the Mesolithic. Ulster Journal of Archaeology, 56, one–8.

Google Scholar
McFadyen, L. (2006). Landscape. In C. Conneller & Thou. Warren (Eds.), Mesolithic Great britain and Ireland: New approaches. Stroud: Tempus.

Google Scholar
Mellars, P. (1974). The Palaeolithic and Mesolithic. In C. Renfrew (Ed.), British prehistory: A new outline (pp. 41–93). London: Duckworth.

Google Scholar
Mellars, P. (1975). Ungulate populations, economic patterns and the Mesolithic Landscape. In J. G. Evans, Southward. Limbrey, & H. Cleere (Eds.), The effect of Human on the landscape: The highland zone (pp. 49–57). York: CBA.

Google Scholar
Mellars, P. (1976a). Settlement patterns and industrial variability in the British Mesolithic. In Chiliad. Sieveking, I. H. Longworth, & K. E. Wilson (Eds.), Problems with economical and social archaeology (pp. 375–399). London: Duckworth.

Google Scholar
Mellars, P. (1976b). Fire ecology, brute populations and Man: A report of some social ecological relationships in prehistory. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Lodge, 42, 15–45.

Article Google Scholar
Mellars, P. (1987). Excavations on Oronsay. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Academy Press.

Google Scholar
Mellars, P., & Dark, P. (1998). Star Carr in context. Cambridge: McDonald Constitute for Archaeological Enquiry.

Google Scholar
Mithen, S., Finlay, N., Carruthers, W., Carter, Southward., & Ashmore, P. (2001). Plant use in the Mesolithic: Evidence from Staosnaig, Isle of Colonsay, Scotland. Journal of Archaeological Science, 28(3), 223–234.

Article Google Scholar
Nelson, R. (1983). Make prayers to the raven: A Koyukon view of the northwest forest. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Google Scholar
Nelson, R. (1986). Hunters of the northern forest: Designs for survival among the Alaskan Kutchin (2nd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Google Scholar
Noe-Nygaard, N. (1974). Mesolithic hunting in Denmark illustrated past bone injuries caused by human weapons. Journal of Archaeological Science, one, 217–248.

Article Google Scholar
Overton, North. J. (2014). Memorable meetings in the Mesolithic. PhD Thesis, Academy of Manchester.
Overton, Due north. J. (2016). More skin deep: Reconsidering isolated remains of 'fur bearing species' in the British and European Mesolithic. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 26(4), 561–578.

Article Google Scholar
Overton, North. J., & Hamilakis, Y. (2013). A manifesto for a social zooarchaeology: Swans and other beings in the Mesolithic. Archaeological Dialogues, 20(2), 111–136.

Commodity Google Scholar
Peake, H., & Crawford, O. Southward. Chiliad. (1922). A flint manufactory at Thatcham, Berks. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia, III(Iv), 449–514.

Google Scholar
Preece, R. C., Coxon, P., & Robinson, J. E. (1986). New biostratigraphic show of the post-glacial colonization of Republic of ireland and for Mesolithic forest disturbance. Journal of Biogeography, 13(vi), 487–509.

Commodity Google Scholar
Cost, T. D. (1985). Affluent foragers of Mesolithic southern Scandinavia. In T. D. Price & J. A. Chocolate-brown (Eds.), Prehistoric hunter-gatherers: The emergence of cultural complexity (pp. 341–364). New York: Academic Press.

Google Scholar
Ripple, Westward. J., & Beschta, R. Fifty. (2004). Wolves and the ecology of fear: Can predation chance structure ecosystems? BioScience, 54(8), 755–766.

Article Google Scholar
Rossell, F., Bozser, O., Collen, P., & Parker, H. (2005). Ecological touch of beavers Castor fiber and Castor canadensis and their power to modify ecosystems. Mammal Review, 35(iii&iv), 248–276.

Article Google Scholar
Simmons, I. Chiliad. (1979). Late Mesolithic societies and the environment of the uplands of England and Wales. Bulletin of the Institute of Archæology, London, sixteen, xi–129.

Google Scholar
Simmons, I. G., & Dimbleby, Yard. W. (1974). The possible function of ivy (Hedera helix 50.) in the Mesolithic economy of Western Europe. Journal of Archaeological Science, 1(three), 291–296.

Article Google Scholar
Smith, A. G. (1970). The influence of Mesolithic and Neolithic Man on British vegetation: A discussion. In D. Walker & R. One thousand. West (Eds.), Studies in the vegetational history of the British Isles (pp. 81–96). Cambridge: Cambridge Academy Press.

Google Scholar
Smith, A. G. (1981). Palynology of a Mesolithic–Neolithic site in Co., Antrim, N. Ireland. Proceedings of the Quaternary International Palynological Briefing, Lucknow, 3, 248–257.

Google Scholar
Taylor, B. (2011). Early on Mesolithic activity in the wetlands of the Lake Flixton Basin. Periodical of Wetland Archaeology, 11(1), 63–84.

Article Google Scholar
Taylor, B. (2012). The occupation of wetland landscapes during the British Mesolithic: Case studies from the Vale of Pickering. PhD Thesis, University of Manchester.
Taylor, B. (2018). Subsistence, environs and Mesolithic landscape archaeology. Cambridge Archaeological Journal. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774318000021.

Google Scholar
Taylor, B., Elliott, B., Conneller, C., Milner, Northward., Bayliss, A., Knight, B., et al. (2017). Resolving the issue of artefact deposition at Star Carr. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, 82, 23–42.

Article Google Scholar
Thomas, J. (2015). The future of archaeological theory. Antiquity, 89(348), 1277–1286.

Article Google Scholar
Trigger, B. (1971). Archaeology and ecology. World Archaeology, 2(three), 321–336.

Article Google Scholar
van der Veen, Yard. (2014). The materiality of plants: Plant–people entanglements. Globe Archeology, 46(5), 799–812.

Article Google Scholar
van Vuure, T. (2002). History, morphology and ecology of the Aurochs (Bos primigenius). Lutra, 45(1), 1–16.

Google Scholar
van Wijngaarden-Bakker, L. H. (1990). Faunal remains and the Irish Mesolithic. In C. Bonsall (Ed.), The Mesolithic in Europe (pp. 125–133). Edinburgh: Edinburgh Academy Press.

Google Scholar
Warren, M. (2003). Life in the trees: Mesolithic people and the woods of Ireland. Archeology Republic of ireland, 17(3), 20–23.

Google Scholar
Warren, One thousand. (2015). 'Mere food gatherers they, parasites upon nature…': Food and potable in the Mesolithic of Ireland. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 115C, ane–26.

Google Scholar
Warren, M., Davis, Southward., McClatchie, M., & Sands, R. (2014). The potential role of humans in structuring the wooded landscapes of Mesolithic Republic of ireland: A review of data and give-and-take of approaches. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany, 23(5), 629–646.

Article Google Scholar
Woodman, P. C. (1973). Settlement patterns of the Irish Mesolithic. Ulster Journal of Archeology, 36, 1–16.

Google Scholar
Woodman, P. C. (1977). Recent excavations at Newferry, Co. Antrim. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Guild, 43, 155–199.

Commodity Google Scholar
Woodman, P. C. (1978). The Mesolithic in Republic of ireland: Hunter-gatherers in an insular environs. British Archaeological Reports No. 58. Oxford: BAR.
Woodman, P. C. (1985). Excavations at Mount Sandel, 1973–77. County Londonderry: HM Jotter Office.

Google Scholar
Woodman, P. C. (1992). Filling in the spaces in Irish prehistory. Artifact, 66(251), 295–314.

Article Google Scholar
Woodman, P. C. (2000). Getting back to basics. In T. D. Price (Ed.), Europe's outset farmers (pp. 219–259). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Chapter Google Scholar
Woodman, P. C., McCarthy, M., & Monaghan, Due north. (1997). The Irish gaelic quaternary fauna project. Quaternary Science Reviews, 16(2), 129–159.

Article Google Scholar
Zvelebil, M. (1994). Found use in the Mesolithic and its role in the transition to farming. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Club, 60, 35–74.

Article Google Scholar

Download references

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Graeme Warren and Chantal Conneller for organising the conference session where this newspaper was originally presented, and Ben Elliott and Aimee Little for coordinating the publication. We too give thanks the two anonymous reviewers and editorial staff for comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Thanks also to Paul Lane and the Vale of Pickering Inquiry Trust for assuasive access to unpublished fabric from Flixton SHF, and to Amy Greyness Jones who co-directed the recent excavations at the site. The inquiry presented in this paper arose from doctoral research undertaken past both authors, which was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. All errors are our own.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Department of Archæology, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

Nick J. Overton & Barry Taylor
Department of History and Archaeology, University of Chester, Chester, United kingdom

Barry Taylor

Corresponding writer

Correspondence to Nick J. Overton.

Rights and permissions

Open Admission This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution four.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/past/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided yous give appropriate credit to the original writer(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and betoken if changes were made.

Reprints and Permissions

Almost this article

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Overton, Northward.J., Taylor, B. Humans in the Environs: Plants, Animals and Landscapes in Mesolithic United kingdom and Ireland. J World Prehist 31, 385–402 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-018-9116-0

Download commendation

Published: 29 May 2018
Effect Date: September 2018
DOI : https://doi.org/x.1007/s10963-018-9116-0

Keywords

British and Irish Mesolithic
Zooarchaeology
Palaeoecology
Man–environment interactions
Landscape

Source: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10963-018-9116-0

Posted by: marcottefrientor.blogspot.com